Staff

Richard L. Armitage

Chairman

The Honorable Richard L. Armitage is Chairman of the Board at The Project 2049 Institute. Beginning March 2005, Richard L. Armitage became President of Armitage International.
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The Honorable Richard L. Armitage is Chairman of the Board at The Project 2049 Institute. Beginning March 2005, Richard L. Armitage became President of Armitage International. Previously, his nomination as Deputy Secretary of State was confirmed by the Senate on March 23, 2001. He was sworn in on March 26, 2001. Prior to returning to government service in 2001, Mr. Armitage was President of Armitage Associates L.C. from May 1993 until March 2001. He had been engaged in a range of worldwide business and public policy endeavors as well as frequent public speaking and writing. From March 1992 until his departure from public service in May 1993, Mr. Armitage (with the personal rank of Ambassador) directed U.S. assistance to the new independent states (NIS) of the former Soviet Union. From 1989 through 1992, Mr. Armitage filled key diplomatic positions as Presidential Special Negotiator for the Philippines Military Bases Agreement and Special Mediator for Water in the Middle East. President Bush sent him as a Special Emissary to Jordan’s King Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War. In the Pentagon from June 1983 to May 1989, he served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.

Mark Stokes

Executive Director

Mark Stokes is the Executive Director of the Project 2049 Institute. Previously, he was the founder and president of Quantum Pacific Enterprises, an international consulting firm, and vice president and Taiwan country manager for Raytheon International.
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Mark Stokes is the Executive Director of the Project 2049 Institute. Previously, he was the founder and president of Quantum Pacific Enterprises, an international consulting firm, and vice president and Taiwan country manager for Raytheon International. He has served as executive vice president of Laifu Trading Company, a subsidiary of the Rehfeldt Group; a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; and member of the Board of Governors of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan. A 20-year U.S. Air Force veteran, Stokes also served as team chief and senior country director for the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan and Mongolia in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. He holds a B.A. from Texas A&M University, and graduate degrees in International Relations and Asian Studies from Boston University and the Naval Postgraduate School. He has working proficiency in Chinese.

Ian Easton

Research Fellow

Ian Easton is a research fellow at the Project 2049 Institute, where he conducts research on defense and security issues in Asia. During the summer of 2013 he was a visiting fellow at the Japan Institute for International Affairs (JIIA) in Tokyo. Previously, Ian worked as a China analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) for two years.
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Ian Easton is a research fellow at the Project 2049 Institute, where he conducts research on defense and security issues in Asia. During the summer of 2013 he was a visiting fellow at the Japan Institute for International Affairs (JIIA) in Tokyo. Previously, Ian worked as a China analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) for two years. Prior to that, he lived in Taipei from 2005 to 2010. During his time in Taiwan, he worked as a translator for Island Technologies Inc. and the Foundation for Asia-Pacific Peace Studies. While in Taiwan, he also conducted research with the Asia Bureau Chief of Defense News. Ian holds an M.A. in China Studies from National Chengchi University in Taiwan and a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He also holds a certification in advanced Mandarin Chinese, having formally studied the language at Fudan University in Shanghai, and National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei. Ian’s research has been featured in major media outlets in the United States and Asia, including the New York Times, Reuters, US News and World Report, Huffington Post, NHK, CCTV, the Diplomat, and the Taipei Times. He has testified before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and lectured at the U.S. Naval War College, Japan’s National Defense Academy, and Taiwan’s National Defense University. Ian is the author of "The Chinese Invasion Threat: Taiwan's Defense and American Strategy in Asia" (The Project 2049 Institute, October 2017).

Rachael Burton

Deputy Director

Rachael Burton is the Deputy Director at the Project 2049 Institute where she manages the Institute's research and program development. She currently conducts research and analysis on the Chinese Communist Party’s foreign policy, U.S.-Taiwan relations, and U.S. policy towards Burma (Myanmar).
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Rachael Burton is the Deputy Director at the Project 2049 Institute where she manages the Institute's research and program development. She received her BA in International Affairs with a minor in Chinese at the George Washington University, where she studied nontraditional security in East and Southeast Asia. Prior to joining the Institute, Rachael spent two years as a Teach for China fellow, where she taught secondary school English at a remote rural village in China's Yunnan Province. She has worked briefly at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy and the National Bureau of Asian Research, where she supported events and outreach development, and conducted research on energy security and U.S. engagement with ASEAN. She currently conducts research and analysis on the Chinese Communist Party’s foreign policy, U.S.-Taiwan relations, and U.S. policy towards Burma (Myanmar). Rachael is a U.S. citizen born and raised in Bangkok, Thailand. She reads and speaks Chinese.

Emily David

Research Associate

Emily David is a Research Associate at the Project 2049 Institute. She provides critical research and administrative support for The Institute's programs and activities.
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Emily David is a Research Associate at the Project 2049 Institute. She provides critical research and administrative support for the Institute's programs and activities. She received her B.A. in Political Science with minors in International Relations and Chinese from Seattle University, where she studied international affairs with an emphasis on U.S.-China relations. She most recently completed her Master’s in Chinese Politics, Foreign Policy, and International Relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. While there she completed a thesis which explores China’s aims for its future global role in the context of U.S.-China relations. During her three years living in Beijing, Emily also taught English to Chinese youth, and interned at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy (CTC). At the Project 2049 Institute, Emily currently conducts research on the Chinese Communist Party's foreign policy and influence operations, U.S.- Taiwan relations, and cross-Strait relations

Fellows

Cheery Zahau is the Country Program Director (Myanmar) at the Project 2049 Institute. She is a human rights activist, feminist, writer and researcher from Chin State, Burma. She successfully formed the "Women’s League of Chinland”. She is a major author on a report titled “Unsafe State” where she conducted first-hand research on sexual violence against Chin women committed by the government's military troops. She coordinated and contributed three major reports to the United Nation's UPR, CRC and CEDAW committees. She has testified at the UN, British Parliament, US Congressional Hearings and other governments on the human rights situation in Chin State and Burma. She was awarded “ Chin Person of the Year 2011” by the Chin people. The Irrawaddy Magazine listed her as one of “ Burma’s News Makers 2011”. She has trained hundreds of people on human rights and women’s human rights over the past 15 years. She is also the author of several qualitative research reports on Women’s Access to Justice in Plural Legal System in Burma, LGBT rights and the Rule of Law, Youth Movement Assessment, Women, Security and Peace, Sexual violence and minor rape, and service provisions in Burma, among others.

Ellen Bork is a visiting fellow at the Project 2049 Institute. She has extensive experience working on American foreign policy in Asia, beginning with her service on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff in the 1990s. Her writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Financial Times, The American Interest, Nikkei Asian Review, World Affairs Journal, Forbes, and U.S. News and World Report, among other publications. She has testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Most recently she was senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Initiative from 2009-2017, where she received funding from the Sarah Scaife Foundation for a completed manuscript on Tibet as a strategic interest. In September 2017, she was an International Visiting Fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. Ellen has a Bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University and a law degree from Georgetown University. She is a member of the bar of the District of Columbia and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

, Visiting Fellow

Interns

Alex Bierman is an Intern at the Project 2049 Institute. He is currently a M.A. candidate for Security Policy Studies at the George Washington University (GWU), concentrating in Asian Regional Security and Cyber Security. He also received his B.A. in International Affairs and Asian Studies from GWU. His main areas of focus are cross-Strait relations, the U.S.-PRC-Taiwan strategic triangle, and hybrid warfare. Alex is proficient in Mandarin and recently completed a language immersion program in Taipei, Taiwan.

Camille Moore is an Intern at the Project 2049 Institute. She is currently an M.A. candidate at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) majoring in Film and Television Production. Camille also received her B.A. in English and Creative writing at Regent University.

About The Project 2049 Institute

The Project 2049 Institute seeks to guide decision makers toward a more secure Asia by the century’s mid-point. The organization fills a gap in the public policy realm through forward-looking, region-specific research on alternative security and policy solutions, with an eye toward educating the public and informing policy debate.